Acronyms, abbreviations and strange terms abound when you’re dealing with payment processing, cloud computing and other aspects of today’s technology, but we speak in plain English. With a brief introduction, you can understand cloud computing terms like DevOps, IaaS, PaaS, SaaS and more.
Cloud computing is simply today’s way of managing data remotely rather than on servers that are located at your business. That means a cloud server is a computer server that works just like one in your basement or IT room but isn’t located on your premises.
What about DevOps? When development and operations work together to automate the software creation, development and implementation processes and any changes down the road, that involves the culture or practice of DevOps. It’s just another way to talk about working together.
Here are some other terms you may see or hear about payment processing software and other software products and services:
- Software as a service or SaaS is the use of the web to deliver software applications to your business that are managed by third parties. The UniPay gateway is a cloud computing solution that can be delivered by SaaS. So is Google Apps, Salesforce, Concur and more.
- Platform as a service or PaaS provides software with cloud components or a framework upon which a company’s own team can create customized applications. The UniPay gateway is completely open source, meaning your company’s team can change and build upon it, making it work like a PaaS framework. Using a PaaS can help you get a solution in place quicker than starting from scratch.
- Infrastructure as a service or IaaS includes cloud infrastructure services for accessing, managing and monitoring computing, storing and networking resources. Instead of buying a lot of hardware, your company can choose IaaS as the hardware upon which the UniPay gateway operates. You buy the service you need, just like you may buy electricity but don’t have your own generating plant. Amazon Web Services is today’s most widely used IaaS offering.
Do you understand more now? Remember, when you work with the commercial open source UniPay gateway, we help you understand the terms. Our cloud computing payment processing option could make sense for your company. Let us help you decide.